


Never Walk Away

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (from OCs in Dean's past), Dean's bad headspace, Dean-Centric, Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Flashbacks, Gen, Non-Consensual Touching, Objectification, Possession, Self-objectification, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: Looking at Michael's banged up vessel, it clicks with Dean. Relief and despair instantly hit him in equal measure, making his heart race and his throat tight where it already throbs from Michael choking him. Inside his mind, it gets very quiet. On automatic, his shoulders lower along with his voice. Making him small despite being taller. The moment Michael catches on, Dean's hit by a wave of fear so intense his stomach turns over and his knees start to tremble.





	Never Walk Away

 

 

 

_and we've never walked away, ever_

_even when we should've, because not_

_every fight_

_everywhere_

_can be won_

 

 

 

 

Dean doesn't count it as his first kiss, because he didn't kiss back and it wasn't on the mouth anyway.

He's twelve, maybe, and it's very late. After closing time, but Dad and his buddies are what Dad calls “in good with management”, and allowed to stay at the bar after everyone else has already left. The men are drinking booze, Dean has a still half full glass of orange juice. He's tried what the men are drinking, and pretended he liked it. With the way they laughed and clapped him on the back, he's not sure they believed him. At least the room has stopped spinning. Dean is very very tired but the grown-ups aren't, so he tries to look awake.

Dad said he was supposed to learn something today, something about hunting or about playing pool; Dean didn't really understand it. He'd said Yes Sir anyway, because when Dad thinks he's dumb, it hurts real bad.

Their waitress, Martha, is sitting next to Dean. Looking back, Dean thinks she was probably around thirty, but when he was a kid she seemed much older than that. Dean had been a little scared of her at first—she had long red nails and smelled like cigarettes, and she was _ancient_ , so maybe she was a witch they were hunting? But then she ruffled Dean's hair when she came to their table and gave him soft pretzels, and Dean immediately forgot about being scared. Her touch was a little rough but still the nicest he's had in a while, not counting Sammy hugging and clinging to Dean in his sleep. And she gave him nice food! Dean loves food a lot. It makes his belly warm, and he's always a little happier after.

One of Dad's buddies says something that makes the men laugh and Martha roll her eyes. She leans down to Dean, pinches his cheek lightly. Her hand lingers. “You would never say something like that about ol' Martha, now would you, Deanie?”

Dean has no idea what the man said, but he wants to please the nice woman who gave him pretzels. “No, Ma'm,” he says, and then he feels warm again when she smiles at him, very wide, so that her teeth show. It's a little shark-like, but Dean smiles back.

“Aw, aren't you a little _angel_ ,” Martha coos, and then she kisses him, wet and with a smack, right next to his mouth. Dean freezes. Suddenly, he doesn't like what's happening anymore, wants to shove Martha away. She has a tight grip on his neck though, and you don't shove women, anyway, unless they're monsters, because then they're bitches. That's how Dad explained it, so Dean holds still and endures the grip of Martha's nails and the way she rubs at his cheek, smearing her lipstick into his skin. The men are laughing again and Martha is still smiling, smirking, so even though he didn't like it, Dean thinks he did good.

It goes on like that for a little while longer until Dad says something like “keep yer greasy hands off of my boy,” and Dean feels a different warmth, that of Dad protecting him. It confuses him, then, when Dad claps him on the back later, in the way he does when Dean hit a lot of cans during shooting practice. But Dean likes pleasing people, especially Dad, so he doesn't ask.

It's a couple years later that Dean learns a new hunting strategy: being the bait.

At first it's not that bad. Scary; except all hunting is scary. But when he gets older, it gets worse. People look at him different, touch him different. The first time Dean lets one of them—one of the _bitches_ —feel him up so Dad can sneak up on her and kill her, there's a moment where Dean feels like there's no difference between her and him. Where he wants to shove her off him and run away, even though it's too late to change anything. And then it's done, and her blood is staining the ground, and Dean's body is all confused. He's craving touch all the time, so her touch felt good, but that means Dean is disgusting for letting a _bitch_ touch him, and he also feels all dirty and wrong for offering himself up like that. Like a bitch.

Dad nods at him though, “Good job, son,” so Dean learns to welcome the feelings of dirty and wrong, because they mean he's been useful, he's been good.

He learns to move a certain way, learns to make his eyes and voice go all soft, learns how to make himself look small even when _they_ are smaller than him.

It's a relief, sometimes, not to have to be a person. To be bait, a shield, a weapon. When Dean slips into a role, it means people will be saved, and that's what's most important. “Monsters are selfish,” Dad says. “They don't think about anything but feeding, or killing, or both. And they're stronger than us, faster. So we gotta do whatever it takes. You understand that, son?”

Dean is putting salt rounds into a sawed-off. He can't take too long to answer, because Dad gets angry when he has to wait and Dean doesn't want him angry. Dean has to try hard not to look over to where Sammy is sleeping on the bed, to sound like he means it when he says, “Yes, Sir.”

>

“Yes.”

Looking at Michael's banged up vessel, it clicks with Dean. Relief and despair instantly hit him in equal measure, making his heart race and his throat tight where it already throbs from Michael choking him. Inside his mind, it gets very quiet. On automatic, his shoulders lower along with his voice. Making him small despite being taller. The moment Michael catches on, Dean's hit by a wave of fear so intense his stomach turns over and his knees start to tremble.

Cas is trying to stop him. Cas is going to hate Dean for this, and Dean will hate himself, but he can't _stop_ himself. He has to do this. He doesn't have anything else to offer except this.

The second the words leave Dean's mouth, Michael lights up the entire room. He slams into Dean like a solid wall, and Dean's mouth opens in a scream, but instead of sound pouring out something pours _in_ , hot and scorching, taking Dean's breath with it as it spreads out inside.

Dean's lied a lot in his life, to get what he wants. He's done a lot of things, has let people do things to him. To keep his family together.

He's lied to himself, like he's lying to himself right now, when he tells himself that he can win this fight and get to walk away after. Walk away, put on a Hawaiian shirt, stick his toes in the sand next to Sam and Cas, and be done.

But back at the first Apocalypse, nobody believed Dean could hold even that weaker version of Michael, so he shouldn't be surprised.

Dean's smiling at Sam, ecstatic. The son of a bitch is dead, they did it. And then it starts, first with a burn in his chest that hurts so bad it curls him over, then up his throat, ripping control away from his limbs. Just like that, he's screwed it up.

Dean wants to yell at Sam and Jack to run, but it's too late. An iron grip pulls him under, and he can't see, can't hear, can't feel his body. It's dark and cold, and he feels like he's drowning, scared and in pain. But it's not death, because Dean knows death. And then he slips deeper into the black water, and he forgets that he knows death, and he forgets that he is drowning. He feels very warm inside, like he's had a good meal, or like someone's touched him gently, or like when he's done good. He doesn't remember why or what he was fighting. It's nice being so warm. It means everyone's okay, everyone's saved. So maybe it's okay to feel like this, like he can just let this happen.

He's maybe crying, which is confusing, but even that's okay, because he's safe here.

>

“Dean? Dean!”

Banging against the bathroom door. Dean opens his eyes, and water gets into them that he dazedly blinks away. Outside the door, Sam is complaining about Dean using up all the hot water and probably jerking off in there.

The air is heavy with steam. Dean shivers. He yells at Sam to chill, that he's just washing off the blood of that _bitch_ he and Dad ganked last night. There's a beat of silence after that, and Dean's voice must have betrayed him, because Sam asks, “Are you okay?”

The blood is long gone. Dean's skin is clean, and red from how hot the water is. But he still feels—he still _feels_ , and he needed just one more moment, just a little while longer for it all to go away. It's getting much better. The first time he showered afterwards, he was forced to stumble out and throw up halfway through.

Dean clears his throat, once, two times, and yells at Sam to scram, that he's peachy. Go and eat breakfast, don't forget to pack your lunch. What? No, no boring school for your big brother today, Dad's found another hunt! Yeah, whatever, see you later, squirt.

Then he's alone again, alone with the water beating down onto his shoulders. Shivering, he makes to reach for the knob to turn it off, fighting down those feelings that blossom, cold and ugly, inside.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i worked on this all day and now i have no idea anymore if i've really achieved what i wanted with it, so i'm just throwing it out there. also if you think this needs different/more tags, please let me know!!! if you enjoyed it (i feel like enjoy is the wrong word but u know what i mean) please leave me a comment!!! or yell at me about dean and michael!dean on tumblr at [cuddlemonsterdean](http://cuddlemonsterdean.tumblr.com/)


End file.
